THE THRUSH. 11 



writer observes, "a song-tbrusli will devour five 

 or six snails before a blackbird can swallow one." 

 Tlie season in wbicli tliey consume tbe greatest 

 number of these animals is in winter, after a night 

 or two of severe weather, when the gi'ound is 

 crisp and hard with fmst, and is glittering in the 

 sun-lR'am, as if strewed with diamonds. A writer 

 in the ^lagazine of Katural History says, "In 

 winter, alter a nii^dit or two sharply frosty, with 

 just a sprinkling of snow on the ground, it is 

 pleasing to stroll beside hedgerows, and sec the 

 Turdi* starting in and out on the face of the 

 hedge-banks, and between the base of the stems 

 of the hedges, in search of snails. If you proceed 

 slowly, a smart reiterated ta])ping, not loud, but 

 obvious, is heard at uncertain intervals, as the 

 Turdi may find their i)rey ; this they break, not 

 wherever found, but on some stone, iixed iirmly, 

 with one face exposed in the bank-side, and, 1 think, 

 station themselves below the stone. 1 have, in 

 my vocabulary, called such stones chosen of the 

 thrushes, the thiiishes' chopping-blocks." The 

 same writer observes, that the thrushes also con- 

 sume a great number of snails during July and 



• The generic name of the thrushes and blackbirds. 



